Extras! 11 September 2014

Welcome to The Extras! A daily dose of all the smaller movie related news, clips and just plain cool stuff that you might have missed!

We start off today on a sombre note. Veteran character actor Richard Kiel, most famous for playing the James Bond villain Jaws in Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me,has passed away at the age of 74. The cause of death is unclear at this point, although it may have been as a result of complications from a broken leg suffered earlier this week. Kiel is the only Bond villain to appear in two movies, and has left an indelible mark (bite marks?) on pop culture.

And now to take your mind off that bit of sad news, here’s a funny little Guardians of the Galaxy short done in LEGO (because Chris Pratt also stars in The LEGO Movie. Duh).

Star-Lord’s most prized possession is a mix tape left to him by his mother. But after playing the tape every day for over 20 years, the quality might have degraded….just a little….

While some movies deserve to be lighthearted romps (are you listening DC?), there others that need to be dark, and no, we’re not just talking about affirmative action casting. Alex Kurtzman’s Venom, a spinoff focusing on one of Spider-Man’s deadliest foes, is just one such movie. And apparently, that’s exactly what we’re going to get, according to Kurtzman himself.

“The idea is that you can do things with Venom that you can’t do with Spider-Man… Venom is the representation of every line that will get crossed. He’s a much darker character.”

“For me, I read the script that Alex [Kurtzman] and Bob [Orci] wrote, and I genuinely loved it. There was this thread running through it… Once you start removing things and saying, ‘No, that doesn’t work,’ then the thread is broken, and it’s hard to go with the flow of the story. Certain people at the studio had problems with certain parts of it, and ultimately the studio is the final say in those movies because they’re the tentpoles, so you have to answer to those people.”

But at least Garfield seems open to learning from this fiasco and not making the same mistakes. Again.

“It’s a discernment thing. What are the [critics] actually saying? What’s underneath the complaint, and how can we learn from that? We can’t go, ‘Oh God, we f–ed up because all these people are saying all these things! It’s s–t!’ We have to ask ourselves, ‘What do we believe to be true?’ Is it that this is the fifth Spider-Man movie in however many years, and there’s a bit of fatigue? Is it that there was too much in there? Is it that it didn’t link? If it linked seamlessly, would that be too much? Were there tonal issues? What is it? I think all that is valuable. Constructive criticism is different from people just being d*cks, and I love constructive criticism.”

Poster of the day: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (That… girl… is on FIYAAAAAAAAAAHH!!…. *cough* sorry)

“There have certainly been some discussions about it and I’m open to it. That whole experience working with Johnny (Depp) and (director) Gore (Verbinski) was really amazing for me.”

The last time we saw Turner on screen, he had become the cursed captain of the Flying Dutchman, damned to spend his life at sea for 10 years at a time, before returning to land for just one day. If the film takes place during one of these 10-year stretches then Turner could definitely factor into another film.

And just like I called it yesterday, Hayley Atwell’s appearance in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season two premiere will indeed be in the form of a 1940’s flashback. We know this thanks to this first pic from the episode showing Atwell’s Agent Carter getting up to some gunplay with Dum Dum Dugan and the Howling Commandos, last seen punching Nazis in the face back in Captain America: The First Avenger.

I’m a big fan of director Joe Carnahan’s work (having first discovered it in a really cool BMW ad of all things), but there’s no denying that as fun as his A-Team reboot was, there was a whole lot of silliness (here’s looking at you sideways shooting airborne tank).

While the unlikely duo of Groot and Rocket are definitely the heart and soul of Guardians of the Galaxy, for me the ultimate scene stealer was Dave Bautista’s Drax the Destroyer. And it looks like he’s going to be stealing some scenes from some rather big deal heroes in the future. That’s according to professional wrestling site PW Mania who, during a report on how the wrestler turned actor is currently renegotiating his contract with Marvel to reflect Guardians’ success, claim that the character will have a “significant” role in The Avengers 3.

This should come as no surprise to comic book fans, as they know that the “Destroyer” part in Drax’s name actually refers to how he was genetically altered (I’m simplifying here) for the sole purpose of destroying big baddie Thanos. And since it’s almost a given that Thanos and his plans for the Infinity Stones will be the focus of the third Avengers movie, this one makes a lot of sense.

Despite the apparent stage-fright of its titular star and some silly scripting choices, Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla ended up being way better than many expected it to be. Even if it also didn’t end up being the type of movie many expected it to be. So let’s take another look at the best American Godzilla movie ever made… honestly.

If you have anything you would like to contribute to Extras, whether it be interesting stories, funny videos, or artistic photos of yourself in morally questionable poses, feel free to drop a mail to [email protected]

A man of many passions - but very little sleep - I've been geeking out over movies, video games, comics, books, anime, TV series and lemon meringues as far back as I can remember. So show up for the geeky insight, stay for the delicious pastries.

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